23

Guardians of the Elm

The job choices were obvious, from what he could tell by the three NPCs standing in front of him: advancement to either a swordsman, a bowman, or—what he assumed to be—a monk, or at least an open-handed fighter. He already knew his choice, so his attention was captivated by something else: the glowing blue crystal at the center of the hut. He could almost feel the waves of light radiating off it, as if something was gently pushing against his body.

The bowman cleared her throat.

“Right,” Rian said. “Sorry, I’ll decide in a moment.” He glanced aside at Kat and whispered, “Hey, this isn’t a fight, is it?”

Kat nodded. “I wasn’t gonna spoil it for you, but if you want any advice, I’m happy to help.”

Yeah, not getting potentially killed at random would be great, he wanted to shout at her, but he closed his eyes for a moment and clenched his jaw. When it passed, he asked levelly, “What am I going up against?”

“Nothing you can’t handle. If you really beat Torgo, that is.” The subtle doubt in her voice made his heart sink a little. “How’s your weapons holding up?” She opened her inventory and pulled out a tesseract, the blue light of the crystal refracting through it. “I can repair anything for you if you need it.”

Rian held up a hand. “No, it’s fine. I just need to know what I’m fighting.”

Kat stuffed the tesseract back into her pocket. “A memory of Goam,” she said, solemn. “He’s going to have a mix of Fighter and Fighter-subclass skills, and you’re going to have every Fighter skill available at once, as well.”

He gaped. “Whoa, what? Every single skill?”

“Just Fighter skills. Not the subclass ones. I mean, there’s not much to it. The fight is pretty intuitive, in my experience. I’ve never made a Fighter before, but I hear it’s mostly the same for all first job advancements. You just kinda figure it out during the battle.”

Rian calmed his breathing. This was already more stressful than he’d thought it would be. And then a thought struck him—what if he was choosing the wrong alignment by coming here? Fighting a memory of the god to whom he was becoming aligned meant he was technically meeting one of them.

There was no way it could be that simple, but he couldn’t help but ask.

“So,” Rian said, “you fought a memory of Yindra during your advancement?”

Kat shook her head. “Just a servant of hers. A defected servant at that, if you want to get technical. Getting the Yindra alignment is the exception, of course.”

Of course. If there was one thing he’d learned by now, it was that everything involving Yindra was the exception. He nodded to himself, more so in acceptance than disappointment. Staring off, he ended up focusing on the crystal at the center of the hut without realizing it, and then realized he couldn’t inspect it at all.

Nothing was coming up. No text, no window. Not even question marks.

“You’re standing before a shard of Goam’s soul, adventurer—what remains of his body,” the swordsman said, sliding his rag down his blade. He was a rugged man, the epitome of a soldier, his voice deep and his chin covered in stubble. “Don’t be afraid.” He beckoned Rian. “Come. See for yourself.”

The bowman stood aside, and Rian stepped up to the crystal. The waves of force were stronger, feeling as if a hollow space were opening inside him. It verged right up against “unbearable” but didn’t cross it.

“Put your hand against it,” the swordsman said. “Tell me what you feel.” Rian glanced at him nervously. “I promise you it’s safe,” he drawled. “In fact, there’s nothing safer.”

Rian carefully reached out. When his fingers met the crystal, he nearly recoiled.

There was nothing there. And yet it was right there, in front of his eyes. He readjusted his hand, and still there was nothing—no sense of solidity, nothing pushing back against his hand. And yet he couldn’t move his hand forward. It was as if his mind and body were telling him two different things.

The swordsman smirked. “Well?”

“I don’t understand,” Rian said. “It’s some kind of physical illusion.” It was something he could only feel in a simulated world like this, because the feeling was completely impossible. When he glanced over his shoulder at Kat, she was only standing with her arms crossed at the entrance of the hut, watching attentively. Corvis, if he had to guess, was waiting outside—probably to avoid getting close to this strange crystal.

“In the course of your adventures,” the bowman said, “you will grow stronger. The accumulation of power is inevitable, and with power comes instability. You will approach the likeness of the Four but retain the flaws of your humanity.”

“Selfishness,” the monk said, his eyes still closed, sitting there as if he were in his own bubble of reality. “Greed. Envy. The will to undo. A desire for destruction.” When he opened his eyes, he was looking directly at Rian. “Goam knew these to be our flaws, for they were his undoing.”

“These towns,” the bowman said, gesturing wide, “these cities remain in spite of the Undoing not because of our good will, but because of the Four who sacrificed everything. Their protection encompasses Elmguard, as it does for Thile Harbor, Nostdal, and the Temple of Altir.”

In a moment of insight, Rian muttered, “So it’s an anti-griefing mechanism.” The field emanating from the crystal was preventing absurdly powerful players from coming along and destroying the towns and everything in them. They weren’t just safe-areas; they were the only safe-areas in the world.

“It’s a negation crystal,” the swordsman said. “A nullshard. The largest of the known shards in Miracia.” He stood up, lifted his broadsword, and brought it down on the crystal with full force. The blade stopped instantly as it struck the crystal—as if the sword hadn’t been swung and was merely being held against it. The swordsman let go, and the blade clattered to the floor.

Well, Rian thought. That explained why he couldn’t inspect it; the crystal was literally negating the attempt.

The swordsman picked up his sword, then wound up again and brought it down beside him—onto the monk’s head. Rian flinched, but the blade halted just as it did before, though now there was a damage number floating up: colorless and transparent as opposed to the usual orange.

The monk frowned. “I think he understands, Rufus.”

“Sorry, I must’ve mistaken that shining head of yours for the crystal.”

“Now then,” the bowman said, “if our demonstration is satisfactory, what shall you choose, Cobalt? Which path speaks to your desire of power?” She gestured to the swordsman, who had returned to sitting and cleaning his sword. “Do you wish to train under the guidance of Sword Expert Rufus?” She reached over her shoulder, pulled her bow off her back, and spun it around to present to Rian. “Will you seek tutelage under myself, the Bow Expert Eileen?” Still holding the bow, she held out her other palm as if to present the monk. “Or will you seek the ways of abnegation, and aspire to perfect the body as a weapon, under Form Expert Dan?”

→Become a Swordsman.

Become a Bowman.

Become a Fighter.

They were undoubtedly listed by difficulty. Confirming his suspicion, each choice expanded to show more detailed information.

Class: Swordsman

Difficulty: 2/5 (C-rank) (Easy)

Weapon Types: Broadswords, Great Swords, Spears, Rapiers

Armor Type: Mail

Main Stat: STR

Role: Melee DPS, Melee Tank

Subclasses by Difficulty: Knight (2/5), Berserker (4/5), Duelist (5/5), ??? (Hidden)

“Bound by honor, Swordsmen devote themselves to the mastery of bladed weapons and the protection of the weak. A class with a balanced profile suitable for most combat roles, but may struggle against faster, ranged opponents.”

Class: Bowman

Difficulty: 3/5 (B-rank) (Medium)

Weapon Types: Bows, Longbows, Crossbows, Revolvers

Armor Types: Cloth, Leather

Main Stat: DEX

Role: Ranged DPS, Utility

Subclasses by Difficulty: Ranger (3/5), Scout (4/5), Gunslinger (4/5), ??? (Hidden)

“Preferring to fight from afar, Bowmen pelt their enemies with ceaseless arrows and projectiles. A solitary, low-defense class that relies on positioning to survive.”

Class: Fighter

Difficulty: 4/5 (A-rank) (Hard)

Weapon Types: Knuckles, Claws, Gauntlets, Hand-wraps

Armor Type: Cloth

Main Stat: STR

Role: Melee DPS, Melee Tank, Utility

Subclasses by Difficulty: Brawler (3/5), Grappler (4/5), Monk (5/5), ??? (Hidden)

“With high speed, minimal range and minimal reliance on weapons, Fighters prefer to get up close to deliver tremendous strikes. Heavily disadvantaged against ranged opponents.”

All those different subclasses sounded tempting. Nonetheless, he knew which path was his. Even if it was more arduous than the others, greater risk meant greater rewards, and he was confident enough in his abilities to make the choice.

He focused upon his answer, pulling the selection arrow down.

“Well done,” Dan said, standing at last. “Now, you must prove yourself.” He turned to the crystal. “Come forth, Goam.”

Rian stepped back as a pulse emanated from the crystal. The three class trainer NPCs turned around and made their way to the other end of the hut, where a wall of churning fog had appeared. The class trainers, Kat, and even Corvis all disappeared behind it—their shadows appearing then vanishing.

The crystal brightened, and everything else blurred. When Rian could see again, the rugs on the dirt floor had vanished, replaced with lacquered brick. The fog had darkened to smoke, rotating at a wide distance with the crystal at its center.

You have left Kat’s party.

No longer in the hut, he was standing inside a temple sanctuary. When he turned around, he nearly jumped at the sight of what was standing behind him—a gray statue of a bald, faceless man or woman in heavy robes, half its figure shattered and in pieces upon the floor.

Again the crystal at the center of the room pulsed with light, flickering across the remains of the statue, and the surrounding wall of smoke beyond it stopped moving. It began to reverse, then spun faster until it appeared as a wall of impenetrable darkness—as if everything here were floating in an endless void.

The pieces of the statue leapt off the ground and fitted themselves together. Rian stepped back.

The statue was four-armed, carrying a sculpted object in each of its four palms: a wand, a ring, a perfect marble sphere with a ring hovering around it, and lastly what resembled a chained pocket-watch. Behind the statue was an enormous, stylized depiction of a halo in a rectangle of chiseled rock that stood half as tall as the sanctuary itself.

Rian brought up his arms, readying himself for the statue to suddenly step down from its foundation. But nothing else happened.

When he glanced at his arms, he was glowing. An aura of light surrounded his body, causing it to waver. It resembled the same glow he’d seen during the initialization of the PVP instance in the forests, from Lahir’s item. His outfit had changed, too. He was wearing a loose-fitting cotton jacket with a cloth belt. His old belt was gone, along with the scabbard for his broken sword. When he tried to open up his inventory and equipment pages to see what he was wearing, nothing happened.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

He turned around, and where the nullshard crystal had been standing, instead there was a man wearing a stained, cotton jacket. Muscular, bloodied, and limping, the man approached. The trails of a long bandanna waved out behind him. Half his skin was rocky, cracked like desert ground, and rivulets of blood rolled down his face. He was rather short but exceptionally stocky, with the physique of a weightlifter. His gaze was unfocused, blank, staring into and past Rian.

Approaching no faster than before, the man raised his arms into a readied stance, palms open.

Memory of Goam (Level 10)

HP: ???

“A splinter of consciousness, materialized from a nullshard that contained a fragment of the god of strength, Goam.”

You have obtained a new quest: “Defeat ‘Memory of Goam (Lv. 10)’ in combat.”

Reward: Goam-Alignment; advancement to Fighter.

Time limit: 10 minutes.

Goam stopped walking, glanced up. His gaze landed on Rian.

Widening his stance, Goam closed his fists. Shaking the entire sanctuary, the sound was like an explosion: his fists erupting into blue flames which spread and consumed his body. Steadily, the flames diminished until there was a faint glow encompassing him, but his hands were shining as if encased in azure light. An HP bar appeared over his head—and another bar, empty, above that. A meter.

Aw, hell, Rian thought.

Meters were never a good sign.